MOAR Bones

19512 we left Český Krumlov in the not-so-early morning, which is kinda shitty, cause it limited our time in Vienna, but the travel was pretty. Harlow admitted we got turned around at some point during the journey, and we also stopped at a "small border town" in the Sudetenland. (sudetenland pictured in black beow)

The Sudetenland basically hugs the lands of the Czech republic. The high German population in said Sudetenland is a result of the Bohemian kings being friendly to immigrants. The kings invited peoples from abroad to come and live in his lands, to develop and improve the economy and whatnot, and being that German speaking people surround the Czech lands, they moved right in. many of the population centers in this area started out as monasteries, which worked well towards the whole internal colonization agenda in that these monks provided education (beer) and spiritual health to these new towns. When Czechoslovakia proclaimed its sovereignty in 1918, there were Germans in the Sudetenland which agitated for either independence, or annexation to Germany and Austria. Despite this being the time of Wilson's "national self determination" it was decided that these people would remain part of Czechoslovakia national self determination only worked when the badguys were being picked apart. this helped to lead to the problems of the beginning of the second world war what with Hitler rolling in under showers of roses. This particular little border town (whose name im not sure was even mentioned), popped up as a salt trading post in the middle ages, made up of majority Austrians, the square, and city overall was planned, as part of that colonization campaign by the bohemian kings, hgence is nice orderly nature. (not depicted below)

This town was almost entirely empty due to the expulsion of the Germans after WWII, as the Czechs were rather upset with what the Nazis did with the place, and then with the fall of the Iron Curtain, the town was left abandoned, because it was so close to the border with the West. after that we made our way into vienna, we got a very brief driving tour, and were then released upon the city. myself and the clique i have become an integral part of wandered around a lil bit, went into St Stephans cathedral. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stephen%27s_Cathedral,_Vienna ). I have been in here before, but they had colored cellophane over the windows with crazy colors, so the inside was full of color, we could not determine why the different colors, there was a huge festival Life Ball, which was to raise money to fight HIV/AIDS ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Ball ). so you can put toegher what you will from that.

the guide was mentioning some back story to this church, and actually lots of the stuff in Vienna. for a while, Prague was actually the capitol of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and as such the prince of Vienna, who was at various times the crown prince to the Hapsburg throne, and there were often pissing matches between these royal cousins and uncles, and brothers and in-laws. and that is how Vienna began its ascent. a brother in law was ruling Vienna, while the Emperor sat in Prague, and for every church built in Prague, to keep up the Viennese monarch threw up his church, or University, or what-have-you. this church is a result of one of those pissing matches. after this we wandered through the Hapsburg imperial crypt ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Crypt ) which was pretty cool.

it had all the big famous ones, that last picture Franz Josef, he was a bad ass, working real hard as a genuine civil servant to an archaic and atrophying multi-ethnic empire, lead said empire into the first world war, died before it ended, but hey, he was well into his seventh decade of rule at the time, so we can cut him some slack. after this we ate at a vietnamese place, and me and my buddy ordered "extra spicy" and it didnt manage to tickle my throat, imagine eating a food, while smelling Sriracha ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sriracha_sauce ) its not on the food, just in the general vascinity, so you get a moments hesitation when you think "maybe this is spicy" but then, its not. yeah it was like that. we found our way home, and on the way one of the girls in our group managed to throw away her wallet. yup, into a trashbin, or rubbish bin, or garbage or whatever they call it in Austria, it was in a bag which cake was in, they finished the cake, and tossed it away. she another one of the friend-circle and myself luckily recovered it before the bums rummaged through for returns, or the carrot-bins (or some such nonsense name for the orange garbage trucks)picked up the trash. went to sleep shortly thereafter.